Beware The Illusions Of Truth

I think most people now understand that the mainstream media does not present objective news or analysis.

There is a slant or bias in everything it does based on the political views of the people who run the networks and those who cover the news.

The pervasive effects of this bias are difficult to overstate.

However, very few understand how pernicious this bias is in shaping the attitudes and views of our society.

Repetition is the first lesson of propaganda. 

The drumbeat of repetition engages the "illusory truth effect" in humans. Simply stated, the more often we hear something the more likely we are to believe that it is true---even if it is a complete fabrication.

One of the key principles in any successful attempt to influence is lots of repetition by repeating your points over and over again to engage the "illusory truth effect" in us.

The substance of what this means is that mainstream media have become propaganda factories.

I wrote about this in 2019 in pointing out the astounding number of stories The New York Times had written involving President Trump his first two years in office.

Look at this comparison of the percentage of articles in the entire paper that mentioned Trump compared to his predecessors.

It is almost as if there was no other news that was "fit to print."

Of course, 90%+ of those articles were negative.

It was the same with the major network news outlets.

Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad.

Credit: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2019/01/15/networks-trashed-trump-90-negative-spin-2018-did-it-matter

If you recall, a good portion of the negative coverage of Trump involved constant reporting about "Russian Collusion."

Of course, we know now that this was a story that was entirely fabricated.

It did not matter. 

It became "the truth" as it was repeated over and over.

Many still believe the story is true today although innumerable credible sources have completely debunked the Russian Collusion narrative

We are now finding out as well about the massive role that social media companies have also had in shaping the attitudes and views of the public.

We are discovering that Twitter was not much more than a haven for left-wing activist employees that considered it to be their mission in life to amplify views that they agreed with and censor views and people they disagreed with.

In a sane and objective world the Twitter disclosures that have been made since Elon Musk bought the company should be capturing every news media outlet.

In particular, the lengths Twitter personnel took to bury the Hunter Biden story before the election, the efforts to ban Trump from the platform and the censorship of any dissenting opinions by doctors and others that questioned the Covid policies pertaining to lockdowns, school closures and vaccine mandates.

To that point, look at this analysis of how much time the major mainstream media outlets have spent covering the disclosures regarding the Twitter files.

These are the number of mentions of the story per an analysis by Grabien Media over the 11 day period after the disclosures were first made.

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Compare to the mentions by Fox News and Newsmax.

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1603029824934649856

Are people really getting "the news" from the mainstream media outlets?

I thought this chart from Grabien was also interesting in comparing the number of mentions by CNN relating to various threats to society that they have reported on---climate change (blue line), Covid (red ), Democracy/Trump (yellow), January 6th insurrection (green) and Ukraine (orange).

This is for the period January, 2019 to the November, 2020.

Source: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1602782333723189249/photo/1

We tend to think we were inundated with Covid news for most of 2020 and 2021.

However, CNN viewers heard much more about Trump and/or the threat he was to democracy (even when he was no longer President) than they ever heard about Covid.

What I found even more remarkable is the number of mentions about Ukraine that dominated the news of CNN in 2022. Those mentions outnumbered anything regarding Covid even compared to the height of Covid craziness in 2020.

You wonder why you saw Ukraine flags everywhere in 2022?

My favorite was what used to be a Russian market near my house. A Ukraine flag in the lower right window and tape crossing out "Russian" that captured in this photo last April indicated the owners were no longer identifying their store as having anything to do with Russia.

( Postscript--the store now has a new sign that refers to it as an Eastern European food store. The sign is (you guessed it) blue and yellow.

That huge spike in stories occurred in March/April and has continued at a higher level the remainder of the year than Covid ever did did.

What followed?

Do you think this reaction was all a coincidence?

Source: https://www.fox21news.com/news/businesses-deal-with-high-demand-for-ukrainian-flags/

Source: https://www.fox13news.com/video/1057401

Source: https://specialtyfabricsreview.com/2022/05/01/ukrainian-flags-in-demand-after-russian-invasion/

Yes, we know Vladimir Putin is a bad actor.

We know Russian had no business in invading Ukraine.

However, do we really know what kind of actor Zelensky is?

Do we know where the $100 billion taxpayer dollars we have sent this year to Ukraine has gone?  For context, that is about twice the total annual Russian military budget.

Are there facts we are missing in all of this?

Are we getting the full story?

The lesson here is to be wary of any story or narrative that is repeated endlessly.

Beware the illusory truth effect.

The truth in most things does not require someone else to report it to you.

Your own observations, analysis and critical thinking should suffice.

This is an especially important lesson to teach our children and grandchildren.

They are particularly vulnerable to propaganda which dictators and authoritarian leaders have understood for centuries.

Truth is not hard to discern if facts are not hidden and there is a free exchange of opinions and views where dissent is not censored or silenced.

Unfortunately, that is not the world we are living in today.

Understand it and adjust your thinking accordingly.